In recent years, minimally invasive surgical approaches have been applied to orthopedic surgery, and more recently, to spinal surgery. Minimally invasive surgery offers significant advantages over conventional open surgery. Besides the advantages of having smaller skin incisions and reduced scarring, the need for extensive tissue and muscle retraction may be greatly reduced. This leads to significantly reduced post-operative pain, a shorter hospital stay, and a shorter overall recovery period.
In a typical spinal surgery, pedicle screws are implanted into vertebral bodies. With minimally invasive spinal surgery procedures, a guidewire can be utilized to identify target locations on the vertebral bodies for placement of the pedicle screws and guided advancement of surgical instruments to the target locations. Proper placement of the guidewire can be effectuated by inserting a biopsy needle through the skin while using special imaging techniques, such as fluoroscopic or magnetic image guidance. Although guidewires can be useful in conducting spinal surgery, proper placement and removal of the guidewires, and associated surgical instruments such as the biopsy needle, can be time consuming.
Therefore, a continuing need exists for an improved device, an improved system, and an improved method for performing minimally invasive spine surgery.